2013: My year in gadgets featuring @sonos @pebble @3doodler @hiddenradio @bruercoffee

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This is a photo of the second* significant tech/computing gadget/device I ever owned. It's a Sinclair ZX Spectrum Personal Computer from 1982. I still have it with me today, but as you can see from the dust I don't use it much. It packed a Zilog Z80A CPU running at 3.5MHz, and mine has a whopping 48k of storage. I may plug it in some day....

Fast forward to 2013 and I'm still on the gadget trail. It's fair to say that each year just gets bigger & better for a gadget freak like me. And 2013 just seemed to explode with all new kinds of tech, in existing as well as emerging categories.

So here's what I bought in 2013. When you put it down on paper, its A LOT!

Smartphones (as denoted by the launch of the original iPhone) are now into arguably their sixth year. The iPhone 5s is an amazing device and a million miles from the godawful Orange E200 SPV from a decade ago. Tablets are equally becoming the devices they should be. I remember the poor Toshiba Portege Tablet PC from 2003, which took 10 minutes to bootup, weighed a tonne and crashed regularly. Or the limited functionality Compaq iPAQ and Palm Pilots. The iPad Air is a thing of beauty. And to complement it, I got the the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover which is rather special.

Wearable tech has been big in 2013 and I'm a proud owner of the Pebble Smartwatch, which is v1.0 of what I'm sure will be an exciting line of cool and ultimately much more useful devices.  

The drive towards the "quantified self" has spawned a whole range of health oriented accessories. I love my Jawbone UP, which has made me consciously aware of my (lack of) exercise and sleep.

Pebble was also the first of several Kickstarter ventures I've funded throughout the year . This crowd-funding model is an interesting proposition, giving avid consumers the ability to get involved with minimal investment from conception to delivery of a product. If you haven't tried it, I recommend you have a go. Another kickstarter was Lumoback, a posture and activity sensor, which I have to admit is my least used of all my class of 2013. 

The possibilities of an internet of things is truly amazing. I took the first step on the journey, taking my home central heating system online c/o British Gas Hive Active Heating, meaning I can control the temperature in my house remotely via an iPhone app. 

Finally, the disruption in the way we buy & consume music & TV continues. I've just got Google Chromecast which whilst very neat (and cheap!) left me a bit underwhelmed, given I already have Apple TV. Still I'm sure Android-fans will love it.

So what next?

Well, I'm delighted to be getting a taste of 3D printing as I've just taken delivery of the world's first 3D printer pen, 3Doodler. Another product from the Kickstarter stable.

I was an early adopter of the Sonos wireless HiFi system in 2006. And my Xmas present for 2013 is the new Play:1 speaker - bringing my room reach to five. 

2014 will see the delivery of HiddenRadio 2, a cool bluetooth speaker just launched on Kickstarter. (I funded HiddenRadio 1 in 2012)

And finally, its not all tech, tech, tech in the Watton household. 2014 will feature the release to market of ColdBruer, a "cold brew" coffee system which uses a smart process that takes between 3 and 12 hours to make a pot of coffee. 

After all its not all about immediate gratification you know :)

*Oh, and the first was the Sinclair ZX81!

 

Reviewed: ReWork - Change the Way You Work Forever

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I’m a big fan of 37Signals – the software business that makes the collaboration tools Basecamp, Highrise and Campfire. They’re a business founded on some simple principles, which revolve around giving the customer exactly what he needs (and nothing more), delivering insanely great customer service and being as open & honest as possible. These principles have been written up and expanded into “Rework”.

ReWork is a manifesto for a new way of doing business. I know, you’ve heard this before, right? But unlike many other similar books, it’s based on a real-life business (37Signals) that is doing all of this today. Practice, not theory, you see.

ReWork is about forming a great work environment, building products that rock and over-pleasing the customer. It does it in bite-size chapters that pack a no-nonsense punch. Whilst it’s really aimed at the entrepreneurial business owner, it’s great for anyone with a desire to do business differently.

I always enjoy books that like to challenge or shock (not sure if that’s really possible in a business book!) but with topics like “Meetings are toxic”, “Send people home at 5”, “Good enough is fine” and “ASAP is poison” you’ll find something in there to change at least a few of your work practices. As a marketer I particularly liked the section on focusing on your business and not on your competitors. It’s futile, say the authors, especially as competition changes all the time. Focus on your competition and you wind up diluting your own vision. Their advice is, even if you wind up losing, its better to go down fighting for what you believe in instead of just imitating others.

Yes, reading this in rainy London means you take with a pinch of salt those US West-coast aphorisms, but this is one of the most enjoyable and transformative books I’ve read in a long time.

(My review first appeared on Silverpop Book Club)

Burgers and the power of eliminating choice in marketing

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This is the menu for Dirty Burger, an upmarket burger joint in the very downmarket Kentish Town area of London. It's part of a rise in high quality food "shack/diner style" restaurants in London that provide little or no choice for customers. There's Burger & Lobster (ermm, just beef burgers and lobster burgers), Orange Buffalo (chicken wings), The Rib Man (pulled pork sandwiches) and dozens of artisan coffee shops that do away with caramel decaf extra wet capufrappucinos. It's espresso, espresso with a bit of milk or espresso with extra hot water.

What they say, in an un-arrogant customer-friendly way, is we know our product. And we are going to deliver just one or two things, amazingly, brilliantly, wonderfully well. 

That says a lot about these retailers. It screams confidence, simplicity and, what we'd call in B2B marketing, "Thought Leadership". We've worked long and hard at perfecting the perfect dish, so lets not leave you to construct a toppings heavy, sauce soaked mess of a meal. We're chefs. You're not. Trust us.

That's an incredibly powerful marketing approach. Whilst a few years back we thought consumers wanted ultimate choice, I  now think they just want ease of access. Information access and connectivity means we're spoilt for choice. The point of pain now is making a decision. So lets all make it easier for our customers. Forget "have it your way". Let's make their lives a lot easier and deliver that perfect burger.

Image: courtesy of @fennerpearson : http://instagram.com/p/g8sXg4KDgU/

Vodka, Oreos and living in a digital marketing bubble

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To use a soccer analogy, marketing's a game of two halves. 

I was recently exposed to a twitter conversation where a twitterati was berating anyone who used the SuperBowl/Oreo social media example in presentations. Basically, "yawn, yawn, move on - its been eight months now. Let's find another example to talk about". You get the idea.

Now whilst I see his point, lets not forget the real world...

A good friend of mine is an extremely experienced branding & marketing consultant and currently working for a number of emerging drinks brands. Recently she's been helping launch a Vodka brand into Europe - a market already crowded with value & premium brands all crying out for the attention of mainly 18-35 year olds. I was interested in hearing how she went about creating & marketing a new consumer brand. This involved good market research, some focus groups and a positioning that built an "emotional connection". Her view was that consumers wanted to identify themselves with a brand and be a "Product X person". To do this involved highly emotional print & TV advertising (to set the tone, image and demand) as well as aggressive trade sales (to position the brand in the right part of a bar, and thereby satisfy supply).

All good so far. And delighted to hear such rigour, I then asked about the demand for her brand's category as expressed in organic search. Which were the most popular brands on Google? What were the most popular search terms related to vodka?, who comes top when you search for best/cheapest/coolest/most expensive vodka?, cocktail recipes and so on. After all most consumers start/augment/complete purchase decisions via search and get recommendations through social sharing. Right?

Her answer?

"Well Google's all a bit flaky. It's just a load of random nonsense. You can't get any real consumer insights or build an emotional connection"

Now as a marketer immersed in digital marketing this was like heresy, and a somewhat tense discussion followed. Thankfully I didn't get on to social media!! But, regardless, it further reinforced that those of us in the digital/social marketing arena are living in a bubble. Don't forget that smart, intelligent, successful marketers are out there and are still not fully understanding digital/social as a way not only to communicate, but also listen and build affinity.

"They" are not always wrong. And "we" are not always right. 

It is beholden on us to not run out of patience, get bored quickly nor move on to the next new thing.  Let's not avoid our job of helping the vast majority of the marketing community come along with us on this digital marketing journey. Its a long and winding road, so strap in for the ride.

So please, please, please don't throw out the Oreos quite yet. They may be stale to you, but to many they're lovely & oven fresh.

(PS And *of course* you can combine Oreo & Vodka! Image courtesy of partyrebhat.net. Recipe at http://ow.ly/r05TR )

Feels like coming home : I'm joining Adobe

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After an amazing time at Silverpop, I'm honoured to be joining Adobe, heading up the marketing team for Adobe Marketing Cloud in Europe. 

Firstly, thanks to my colleagues at Silverpop for all their support over the last year or so. I can truly say I had a blast. Silverpop is a great company - well positioned to capitalise on the phenomenal interest in digital marketing technology, with great technology, great customers and a great team.

But, as in a lot of times in life, I got an offer I just could not refuse. From a company I've admired for many, many years.

My association with Adobe goes way back when, as a budding sales executive, I helped a non-existent marketing department pull together some print ads using Aldus Pagemaker (later to become Adobe Pagemaker, then superseded by InDesign) on an Apple Macintosh SE. 

More importantly though, I've been a big advocate of the transformative effects digital marketing technology can have on the impact of the marketing function. Being a B2B marketer, this translates most immediately to regaining the revenue conversation and putting numbers around marketing campaigns. Numbers which sadly for the profession went missing for many years, allowing the sales function to take the high ground in most B2B companies.

I've pioneered marketing automation platforms, championed social media as a customer outreach tool, introduced social community portals and helped marketing regain its rightful place at the strategy table.  I've also written before about the need for more science graduates in marketing to facilitate this transformation. 

And, of course, Adobe is leading the transformation with its technology.  Nothing gets more gold standard in web analytics than Adobe (formerly Omniture) Analytics. And add to this world-class social, media optimization, targeting, web experience management and cross-channel campaign management and you can see why the geek in me is excited by the possibilities that Adobe presents for today's digital marketer.

So, exciting times indeed. And for a creatively-minded, Pagemaker-trained, marketing scientist with a passion for digital marketing technology, I just couldn't turn away the opportunity to join the Adobe team. After all, it's not like I'm joining a brave new world. It's more like coming home. 

 

Curation and putting the art back into marketing

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Let's face it, most marketers are judged on output. Pieces of content, number of leads, words written, etc. But is that necessarily the only metric? I'm not talking about quality over quantity, but what value do you place on an individual's ability to curate? Or make good decisions? 

In this networked economy, with access to content no longer a major source of friction and most of us being positively overwhelmed with content, surely we should now be putting more value on a marketing decision framework that achieves the same end goal as an "old school" production engine? 

I was provoked by this recent article that laid out "14 new rules workplace millennials need to master". Whilst a parallel thread, the topics were relevant to my curation vs creation thoughts. In particular the following points:

  • Your reputation is the single greatest asset you have.
  • You need to build a positive presence in new media. 
  • The one with the most connections wins.

As the article puts it "we have moved from an information economy to a social one. It’s less about what you know (you can find out just about anything within seconds with a simple Google search), and more about whether you can work with other people to solve problems." And that "...what you do is important. But what others think you do can be just as important if not more so."

I saw some of this recently when I was taking my CEO through creative ideas around some new company messaging. He was keen to understand whether I had come up with the ideas on my own, had worked with other employees or indeed worked with an external agency. Interestingly whilst he was interested in the creation process, he was more impressed that, regardless of whether they were my ideas or others, I had selected these to share with him. And that, to him, was more valuable.

Don't get me wrong, though. I'm not talking about passing things off as your own, without acknowledging sources. That's pure plagiarism. But the art of hand selecting ideas or content to share with your customers is a powerful concept. (in the case of my CEO, I had worked on some of the ideas with my agency, and told him so).

That CEO session went well. And I've had similar experiences throughout my career. And when asked about these moments and how I came up with great ideas, I can only come up with "it seemed right",  "i know what works and what doesn't work" or "well, that's what i do". (Disclosure: Don't worry, I make bad decisions too). 

Many brands have got this already and almost base their entire business model around curation. Take a fashion retailer like Mr Porter who compiles the latest trends, ready for purchase. Or coffee retailer Pact Coffee who sends you a different coffee every month.

And some brands have taken it even further. Seat14a, another fashion retailer, has just one "look" at a time available purchase. Like the one look, buy it. Don't like it, that's it. And film service Mubi that brings you movies one at a time, every day of the year.

What do all of these brands have in common? They use curation to build tremendous trust with customers and in the end show tremendous confidence. The confidence to go for it. To keep it simple. To take a risk. To have some fun.

And in the end confidence is one of the biggest values any brand can convey to its customers. And marketing that conveys that confidence will surely win out. 

So, whilst knowing your numbers and hiring more marketing scientists is important to upping the credibility of marketing teams, lets not forget marketers that make wonderful, intangible, unmeasurable decisions.  Dare I say it, let's celebrate the return of gut feel in marketing! 

So many marketing books, so little time...

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Like me you're probably constantly on the lookout for new ideas, ways of thinking and ways to work better. [It may even be why you're reading this post].

Personally I love nothing more than a good marketing/business book that leaves me inspired. But I'm notoriously bad at making the time to read long text. Or indeed choosing the right book to read in the first place.

That's why I'm pleased with the idea of the Silverpop Book Club.

We’ve curated some of our favourite books and reviewed them, plus asked leading authors to join us and share their expertise.

As a sneak preview – here are just some of the books & leading authors we have joining us for some special webinars over the next few weeks:

So let us be your digital librarian, and join us over at: www.silverpop.com/bookclub. Sign sign up for updates; it’s the best way to get the latest and greatest book club news and to join our events.

 **B2B Marketing Best Practice Footnote**

From a professional point of view, I love this initiative. Curation of 3rd party content is a great way for us to provide some value to our community, without picking up the megaphone & shouting about our products. It allows us to enter a different conversation with customers and prospects and by sharing innovative content show that we ourselves are aware of, and part of, the latest thinking.

Can retargeting work in B2B marketing?

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My good friends at Velocity Partners recently ran an experiment using content retargeting to promote their business.

The concept is simple - firstly, present ads on other sites (all of which are signed up to a specific ad network) to people who have already visited your site. And secondly, on subsequent visits to those ad network-enrolled sites, change the content so you progress the visitor down your sales funnel.

Whilst I applaud Velocity's efforts to try new ways to reach their target audiences, it for me was also a great example of the good & bad of using retargeting in B2B. 

So, the good:

  1. I think retargeting has more of a place in B2B than B2C, as considered purchases are a long haul and any opportunity to reinforce a brand over multiple touchpoints is worthwhile.
  2. I actually experienced the experiment and was retargeted by them & thought - hey that's Velocity!

However, the bad:

  1. I get really annoyed by B2B brands interjecting themselves into my consumer experience. Its bad enough pre-rolling car adverts, but I really don't want to sit through even 4 seconds of a middleware software ad when my kids are wanting to show me a Minecraft tutorial on YouTube. 
  2. In Velocity's case, I experienced (1) but even worse - I'm already a customer! So I do not need more (intrusive) advertising thanks!

So a couple of things need to change to stop the current platforms being a bit of a blunt instrument:

  1. Ad networks need to provide more granularity in letting advertisers choose which sites their ads appear on.
  2. Retargeting needs to develop a behavioural dimension, which lets advertisers serve up ads not only on whether a consumer has previously visited their site (and nurture them thru a funnel) but also on other data such as purchase history,  CRM profile or other digital behaviours.

Anyone else have thoughts on the matter?